NEW DELHI,
FEB. 2.
He was pushed to his wit's end but Vivek Shokeen eventually asserted his class with a 7-6(5), 7-5 victory over Bassam Beidas of Lebanon in the pre-quarterfinals of the Adidas ITF junior grade `II' tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Wednesday.

It was an impressive effort by the 17-year-old Delhi lad as he saved two set points in the twelfth game of the first set after squandering a 5-3 lead. Vivek turned the match around decisively in his favour once he recovered from being 2-4 down to take the lead at 5-4 in the second set.

The Lebanese lad was quite talented and had a particularly authoritative backhand, but lacked the consistency and confidence of the Indian to make a match of it this day.

Vivek joined Sanam Singh and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan in the quarterfinals, while the 15-year-old Chandigarh lad, Kinshuk Sharma overcame qualifier Honey Rana. Kinshuk will face the second-seeded Sanam Singh in the next round.

In the girls' section, Madura Ranganathan saved a set point in the tenth game of the first set to prevail over China's He-Wen-Fei Li, 7-6(4), 6-2. The second-seeded Sandhya Nagaraj, the champion of the tournament last week in Kolkata, was the only other Indian girl to make the quarterfinals.